It is really hard when your dog gets old. Maybe not for the dog — Otto seems more stoic and dignified than ever — but definitely for the humans who live with him. We remember the glory days when he slobbered on tennis balls, knocked over wineglasses with his tail and rolled on the carcasses of dead field mice to perfume himself for us, his pack. And we only wish that era had lasted a lot longer. Like, say, 80 years.

Slatalla talks about how dogs age differently from humans:

After you watch them grow from puppies — your babies, your children — into adults, you start to notice something miraculous. Because they age much faster than humans, dogs attain wisdom much more quickly. They outpace you on that front until suddenly it’s 11 years later, and as you are still running around, fretting about the children, your job and where you left your car keys, you notice that your dog is looking at you with such forgiving, patient eyes. You almost feel like he’s gone from being your baby to becoming your grandparent.

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We’ve noticed the same thing when our Collies became canine senior citizens. They become so patient and sometimes when we were really stressed, our dog would get a “look” on his face that said “poor human, someday you’ll understand.” We were waiting for him to shake his head and say “tsk, tsk” then walk away.

I had never thought of it exactly as Slatalla describes. That is exactly how we thought of our pug reggie. When he got to be around nine years old, everyone referred to him as “master” reggie. He was thought to be wise and generous. We would always say it jokingly, but it did really feel like he was our elder.